


A Burdened Soul

by TextualDeviance



Series: The Raven and the Dove [50]
Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Pillow Talk, sin - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-17
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-05-02 04:15:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5233727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TextualDeviance/pseuds/TextualDeviance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Athelstan is pained by guilt and worry. Ragnar helps him come to terms with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Burdened Soul

As he opened his eyes and realized that he was at Ecbert’s villa, rather than his own room in Kattegat, Athelstan initially panicked, thinking that the person climbing into his bed was definitely not supposed to be there. Two seconds later, the familiar scent and touch woke his brain up enough to know the truth.

“Fuck, I have missed you so much.” Ragnar’s voice was soaked with wine and had an edge of pain, likely from the gash in his side he had suffered in battle. The villa’s healers had attended to it—he wore a bandage, now—but it obviously still hurt.

Athelstan rolled over, nestling into the strong embrace while trying not to disturb the wound. “I’ve missed you, too.” No sooner had he uttered the words, but they were swallowed up in a deep kiss. All worry and disturbing dreams fled from the contact, and his body came alive. “How was the rest of the party?” he asked between kisses.

Ragnar sighed, then flashed a lopsided, resigned smile. “Interesting.”

“Uh oh.” Athelstan propped himself up on one arm.

Ragnar shrugged. “Kwenthrith apparently wanted to be sole ruler of Mercia. Burgred is dead.”

Athelstan gasped, then shook his head. “Something is not quite right about that woman.”

Ragnar cocked his head. “Eh. She has her charms.”

“What does that mean?” Athelstan tried to catch Ragnar’s eye. “Did you . . . while you were away?” A sinking feeling cooled his ardor.

Ragnar shrugged. “Sort of. It seemed like the thing to do at the time." He paused when Athelstan made a small noise and softened his voice. "Are you upset?”

Athelstan paused. He was, actually, but he also realized he had no standing to be—not given his own questionable conduct with Judith. He changed the subject. “What about Aslaug?”

Ragnar groaned and flopped onto his back, seemingly annoyed that they were talking instead of touching. “What about her?”

“Will she not be upset about you and another woman?”

“If she heard about it, maybe.” Ragnar fixed a gaze on him. “But no one will tell her, I assume.”

Athelstan set his jaw.

“Then there will be no problems.” Ragnar leaned over again, aiming for another kiss.

Athelstan avoided it. “We are leaving tomorrow. Going back to Kattegat; back to your family.”

“Back to my children,” Ragnar said flatly.

A flash of irritation led Athelstan to push on the subject. “Does Aslaug not count as family?”

Ragnar rolled his eyes. “You of all people should know the answer to that.”

Athelstan sat up, drawing his knees to his chest, where they bumped into his cross. “Forgive me for asking, but: Why not set her free, if that truly is how you feel about her? Why did you not set her free years ago?”

“Because she is raising my sons.” Ragnar’s voice took on an edge of tired annoyance.

“True, but that does not require that you continue to make more of them with her—keeping her around even longer.”

Ragnar muttered darkly and sat up, rubbing his face. “Athelstan,” he said gently, though not without exasperation, “what is this really about?”

Athelstan stayed the course. “I am just looking out for you—and her.”

“We can both look after ourselves well enough.” Ragnar put a hand on Athelstan’s cheek, turning his face toward him. “Are you certain this is what really worries you, though? You've never said this much about it before.”

Athelstan bit his lip. As always, Ragnar could see through him as if he were little more than a puff of mist. “Not entirely," he finally said. "I am worried about your marriage, yes. But I am also . . .” he trailed off, searching for the right words.

Ragnar stroked a finger down the cross that lay against the soft hair on his chest. “Do you feel guilty about what happened with that woman—with Judith?”

Athelstan shivered and looked away.

“It was just the once and it is done now, yes?”

“Yes,” Athelstan admitted. “But it was still a sin. For me, but more especially for her. I worry about what will become of her now.”

“Did you force yourself upon her?”

Athelstan frowned. “Of course not. I would never—“

“I know. She is not feeble minded, right? And not a child?” Ragnar pressed. "She was not doing it for favor from you or for some other questionable reason?"

“Not that I could tell, no.”

“Then the choice to be with you was her own. She took on this sin of her will. It is for her and her god to come to terms with.”

“But I enabled that sin,” Athelstan protested. “I put her in this position. That makes me guilty, too.”

Ragnar raised an eyebrow. “Your god holds you responsible for the choices of others? That seems unfair. Does that mean you also feel bad about about enabling my sins? My—what’s the word for it? Adult—something?”

“Adultery. The Sixth Commandment.” Athelstan finished. “And no . . . Well . . .” His voice grew small. “Not entirely.”

“You know my gods do not care—at least not about the marriage aspect of it. Are you worried that your god will punish me—punish both of us—for this sin?” For a moment, Ragnar seemed genuinely concerned.

Athelstan nodded, and clutched at his cross. “I have been trying, Ragnar. I have been trying so hard to come to some point of balance. I want so badly to find a space between our gods that makes sense—that I can live with—but they are so different . . .”

“I thought you resolved this years ago, though. Why is it coming up now? Is it just because of Judith?”

“Partly,” Athelstan said. “I am worried that I have put her in spiritual danger, if not mortal, and I feel I must atone for that somehow. She sought me out as a confessor—as a guardian of her faith—and I have done nothing but help her sin, not find redemption."

"You are no longer a priest, though, right? The sins of others are not yours to forgive."

"I know that. It is more my own sins that trouble me, and yet I have no confessor to help atone for them, and I keep making more. I feel responsible for the troubles in your marriage, for instance. I feel that is my fault somehow.”

Ragnar grumbled. “Athelstan, I thought we had been through this before. If Aslaug has a problem with me being with you, then that is her burden to bear. Whatever comes of my marriage, nothing will change between you and me.”

Athelstan whimpered helplessly. “I cannot bear the thought of angering or saddening her, though. I may not have the same warm feelings for her that I have for Lagertha, but she is still an important person in my life, and now I worry that she is less comfortable with our relationship than she once was. I feel that if I know she does not want this, and yet I continue to do it anyway, I am betraying her and therefore sinning by that betrayal.”

“I am very confused about your god," Ragnar sounded irked now. "More and more I am coming to believe that he may be as real as you say. Yet if he wants such guilt and misery from his followers, he is not a god I want in my life.”

Athelstan went quiet, and rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

Ragnar lay a hand on his arm. “I have to ask: Is this your way of telling me you no longer want to be with me? Because if so, please just say it plainly.”

“No!” Athelstan exclaimed, somewhat more loudly than he intended. “No,” he repeated, more quietly. His eyes scanned Ragnar’s face. Years of grief and toil had taken their toll on the once-fresh skin. The man he loved seemed to have aged two decades in the space of one. And yet even for all its age, it was a face he still wanted to see every day of his life, if he could at all manage it. “I told Ecbert tonight that all of my future lies with you. I believe that to the depth of my soul. I feel something with you that I have never felt, whether with mortal people or in prayer.”

“I feel the same for you—I hope you know that.”

Athelstan smiled. “I do, and I am glad.”

“If this is such bliss for you—as it is for me—then why continue to feel so badly about it?”

Athelstan shrugged. “Perhaps it is just . . .” He thought for a moment, trying to find the words. His gaze lit upon the scars on his hands, and he reflexively clenched them into fists. “My God—the God I love and believe in—is an entity of peace. I believe in what Jesus taught his followers. And I also think—though part of me thinks I may be condemning myself for thinking it—that what some the people of the church have done to twist His words is reprehensible."

"It certainly seems that way to me," Ragnar agreed. "What you have told me of what Jesus said when he walked the Earth sounds very different from this. I know our own priests sometimes use the gods as an excuse for their own desires for power. It seems it is the same with your holy men."

"I am certain of that." Athelstan recalled the horror visited upon him by Ecbert's Bishop; seeing him again after months of healing had brought all the old pain and anger back. He was glad the man had decided to join the Mercia party, so he would not have to see him so often. "Yet the problem is that these teachings—the teachings of men, not God—are embedded in me as much as these scars are. I fear that no matter how pagan I become, or how much I place my faith and devotion in Jesus the peacemaker, not Jesus the judge, that guilt and shame will always be with me somehow. It seems to be a part of who I am as much as the language I learned as a child.”

“Is there a way I can help you to release these feelings?" Ragnar asked. "Because it pains me to see you so upset.”

"I don't think I can ever truly release them--only forget them for a time. And I think the trouble in your marriage is making it hard for me to forget right now."

"As does bedding a Christian woman."

Athelstan nodded. "A married mother, at that."

Ragnar cocked his head. "It seems to me that most of our troubles come down to women, then. Perhaps we should both simply put them out of our minds for now. Your Christian woman. My wife."

"And Kwenthrith," Athelstan half smiled.

"Definitely Kwenthrith. That one is a stormy sea I no longer have any desire to sail upon." Ragnar shook his head as if to clear every memory of the woman.

"Good!" Athelstan relaxed somewhat.

"Besides," Ragnar continued, "there are things I desire considerably more than any woman." He reached for Athelstan's hands, clasping both in his larger, rougher ones. "I am ready to leave this country and go home, but I can truly say that as long as I am with you, I will be home anywhere. When I look to the future I want, all that stands out to me, besides seeing my sons become men, is visiting new lands and seeing new things, with you beside me every possible moment. I could give up Kattegat, give up being king, maybe even put aside my gods, but you I cannot do without." He paused, bringing the hands to his lips for a gentle kiss on their scars. "I will always give you the choice of being with me. I held ownership of you for far too long; you must have your freedom now. But I must say I always hope you choose me."

Athelstan sighed at the contact, but words to respond to Ragnar's seemed to escape him. In the back of his mind, he was still deeply troubled--about God, about sin, about the women in their lives. But here, now, with Ragnar's breath on his skin, everything else began to fade--just as it had since the moment they met. He closed his eyes for a moment, just enjoying the feelings, but then opened again and smiled. "I choose you, Ragnar, just as I told Ecbert. I cannot say where my mind will be every day in the future, but I can say that what I want most in this life right now--and as far as I can see--is as you say: Being together. I cannot say for certain what your gods or mine will ultimately do to us for the choices we're making, but . . . I am tired, Ragnar. I am tired of suffering. Tired of the shame and guilt and pain of trying to be what other people have wanted me to be. You alone have wanted me to be who I am and nothing else. I can only think that that must be God's will. He would not have made me thus if he wanted me to forever try to be something I am not."

Ragnar squeezed his hands and kissed them again. "It does my heart good to hear that. We have been through much together, you and I, and somehow it always seems that however many other things try to keep us apart, we always come back to each other. I hope that will always be true."

"As do I." Athelstan moved into the embrace Ragnar opened for him, and they lay back, curled around each other in an instinctive, familiar position. Ragnar's skin was warm; the hair on his chest soft, and a little sweat-damp. His heartbeat was strong, steady; alive in a way that reminded Athelstan that there was more to his existence than his immortal soul and what other people thought would happen to it.

It seemed strange that something so far outside his old self's imagination was now the thing that was his primary source of familiar comfort, yet here it was. God could have him when he finally left this mortal life. While he was still living it, the only one he would allow to lay claim was this man. If God wanted more from him, He was going to have to make that considerably more compelling than this bliss.

His heart—for now, at least—content and certain of what his future would be, the tension finally left his body. After a few more moments of simply relaxing, other needs made themselves known.

Their lovemaking was slow and gentle—wary of Ragnar's injury—but nonetheless deeply satisfying; a true reunion of their bodies and minds after far too many complicated weeks apart. When their passion had peaked, Ragnar started to drift off to sleep, and Athelstan knew he wasn't far behind. For a fleeting moment, he worried about this. Would someone try to find Ragnar in his own chamber, and wonder at his absence? Could someone come into Athelstan's room unbidden and see them entwined thus? Yet after a brief wave of concern, all worry began to fade. He never felt more safe than in Ragnar's arms. Whatever others may think of that, he realized, he himself was content. As sleep overtook him, only one thought remained: If he truly was a sinner and if Hell were to be his eternal fate, he at least would enjoy for now what felt to him like Heaven. 


End file.
